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01/17/2014

On the same week one former Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator finally landed a head coaching job, a former Dallas Cowboys head coach can't get an interview to be an assistant.

Mike Zimmer deserved his chance, which is why the Minnesota Vikings named him the new head coach.

Wade Phillips has had several chances, which is why he can't land an interview.

The recently fired defensive coordinator of the Houston Texans is 66, and is mystified why he can't land even an interview. He Tweeted on Thursday: "Disappointed not even an interview after 7 straight full seasons of top 10 D with 3 different teams. Last 5 times as D C= playoffs1st yr"

The man has always known his resume better than a 21-year-old out of college.

He also told SiriusXM NFL Radio that perhaps his age is working against him. That may be the case, but the other reality is that after more than 30 years in football, the people doing the hiring and firing are realizing the big results are just not there for Uncle Wade.

Wade has been either a DC or a head coach since 1981. His defenses always, awlays, always get numbers but they never get the January wins. He reached the Super Bowl once, with the 1989 Broncos, but lost.

It would be hard to dispute that the man has not enjoyed a successful career - few last as long as Wade does in this profession - but, for whatever the reason, he has never been attached to the game's biggest winners. That, more than his age, may be the biggest reason his phone is not ringing.

Because unlike the NHL, MLB and NBA, the NFL has no real international market. And we ugly North Americans simply love playoffs. Give us games with meaning!

The NFL is not a publicly traded company that has annual reports, projected earnings and analysts researching its finances, the league operates as if it's on Wall Street ... with the incredible safety of being tax exempt. The league is like Wal Mart - if you are not growing you are dying.

Hockey, basketball and baseball all enjoy a thriving international presence to generate additional revenue whereas American Football has limited cash potential overseas. Despite playing those games in London every year, the interest in the NFL is nothing like the NBA in Asia or Europe. Or MLB in Latin countries, or Asia. Or hockey throughout Eastern Europe of Scandinavia.

Without expanding the regular season, which the NFL had to shelve in the latest round of collective bargaining with the player's union, the easiest ticket to more money is another playoff team. More shirts. More hats. Another game to sell at a premium to rightsholders, and ticket-buying customers.

And another shot to give Cowboys fans hope they can get in, only to be crushed in Week 17.

That Uncle Wade even has a prayer to be a head coach yet again is more proof the men who own teams simply do not learn from other's mistakes. When he was hired by the Texans as their defensive coordinator in 2011, the stats came - specifically for defensive end J.J. Watt - and eventually so did the losses.

Wade will charm you with his aw-shucks style, and be more agreeable than your neighbor's grandmother, and he can recite every single positive statistic that his team has ever achieved but this is not a head coach. He will be able to tell you that he is 82-61 as an NFL head coach, and provide every excuse why he is 1-5 in the playoffs.

The problem is you want to see a man with this personality win a Super Bowl, but there is a reason so few ever have.

Wade is as nice and as gentle of a man who has ever coached in the NFL, but he is also the least confrontational man who ever lived. When he was the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, he readily admitted that he was a "softy". He would rather eat cat poop than break bad news to a player.

In 2010, the Cowboys opened 1-7 when Wade was fired by Jerry Jones. That the team finished winning 5 of its final eight games that season under Jason Garrett should have been a career-defining indictment on Wade's ability to be a head coach.

He treated his players like men, who once they realized that were only too happy to turn around and behave like teenage boys. They did not respect him.

Wade is a decent, good man but those traits seldom mean that he will be a good NFL head coach. He isn't.